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Between Union and a United Ireland

Shifting Positions in Northern Ireland’s Post-Agreement Political Discourse
  • Laura Filardo-Llamas
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From Text to Political Positions
This chapter is in the book From Text to Political Positions

Abstract

This chapter concerns the double objective of political discourse: spreading ideological beliefs and allowing political progress. Political discourse can be effective by means of carefully chosen linguistic elements (pronouns, lexical referents, metaphors). If successfully constructed, the discourse can live on for many years, as we see in the Northern Irish Agreement of 1998 that is still resounding in current debates. Its ambiguity and vagueness allowed for different interpretations, in such a way that the support, or rejection, of the agreement could be legitimised, depending on the ideological beliefs of the community. An analysis of selected instances of its discourse over time shows how the ideological and political positions that are discursively constructed in such a way that they are close to both the producers and the interpreters of the document, but also to the political process of production and interpretation in which the texts are embedded. Text World Theory and Cognitive Linguistics are the tools for analysing the different types of mental representations that are recalled by each instance of discourse.

Abstract

This chapter concerns the double objective of political discourse: spreading ideological beliefs and allowing political progress. Political discourse can be effective by means of carefully chosen linguistic elements (pronouns, lexical referents, metaphors). If successfully constructed, the discourse can live on for many years, as we see in the Northern Irish Agreement of 1998 that is still resounding in current debates. Its ambiguity and vagueness allowed for different interpretations, in such a way that the support, or rejection, of the agreement could be legitimised, depending on the ideological beliefs of the community. An analysis of selected instances of its discourse over time shows how the ideological and political positions that are discursively constructed in such a way that they are close to both the producers and the interpreters of the document, but also to the political process of production and interpretation in which the texts are embedded. Text World Theory and Cognitive Linguistics are the tools for analysing the different types of mental representations that are recalled by each instance of discourse.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword vii
  4. Positions of Parties and Political Cleavages between Parties in Texts 1
  5. PART I. Computational Methods for Political Text Analysis
  6. PART I: Introduction 23
  7. Comparing the Position of Canadian Political Parties using French and English Manifestos as Textual Data 27
  8. Leveraging Textual Sentiment Analysis with Social Network Modelling 47
  9. Issue Framing and Language Use in the Swedish Blogosphere 71
  10. Text to Ideology or Text to Party Status? 93
  11. Sentiment Analysis in Parliamentary Proceedings 117
  12. The Qualitative Analysis of Political Documents 135
  13. PART II. From Text to Political Positions via Discourse Analysis
  14. PART II: Introduction 163
  15. The Potential of Narrative Strategies in the Discursive Construction of Hegemonic Positions and Social Change 171
  16. Christians, Feminists, Liberals, Socialists, Workers and Employers 189
  17. Between Union and a United Ireland 207
  18. Systematic Stylistic Analysis 225
  19. Participation and recontextualisation in New Media 245
  20. PART III. Converging methods
  21. PART III: Introduction 271
  22. From Text to the Construction of Political Party Landscapes 275
  23. From Text to Political Positions 297
  24. About the authors 325
  25. Index 331
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.55.10fil

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Foreword vii
  4. Positions of Parties and Political Cleavages between Parties in Texts 1
  5. PART I. Computational Methods for Political Text Analysis
  6. PART I: Introduction 23
  7. Comparing the Position of Canadian Political Parties using French and English Manifestos as Textual Data 27
  8. Leveraging Textual Sentiment Analysis with Social Network Modelling 47
  9. Issue Framing and Language Use in the Swedish Blogosphere 71
  10. Text to Ideology or Text to Party Status? 93
  11. Sentiment Analysis in Parliamentary Proceedings 117
  12. The Qualitative Analysis of Political Documents 135
  13. PART II. From Text to Political Positions via Discourse Analysis
  14. PART II: Introduction 163
  15. The Potential of Narrative Strategies in the Discursive Construction of Hegemonic Positions and Social Change 171
  16. Christians, Feminists, Liberals, Socialists, Workers and Employers 189
  17. Between Union and a United Ireland 207
  18. Systematic Stylistic Analysis 225
  19. Participation and recontextualisation in New Media 245
  20. PART III. Converging methods
  21. PART III: Introduction 271
  22. From Text to the Construction of Political Party Landscapes 275
  23. From Text to Political Positions 297
  24. About the authors 325
  25. Index 331
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